SOURCE‐ROCK EVALUATION AND BASIN MODELLING IN NE EGYPT (NE NILE DELTA AND NORTHERN SINAI)

Abstract

The area comprising the NE Nile Delta and adjacent northern Sinai is an important hydrocarbon province in Egypt, but the origin of the hydrocarbons and their migration is not fully understood. In this paper, we evaluate organic source facies and assess the results of basin modelling in order to improve our understanding of the regional petroleum system.Organic‐geochemical and petrographic analyses of 800 rock samples ranging in age from Early Jurassic to Pleistocene were used in this study. Most of the samples studied had moderate to high TOC contents, and kerogen was a mixture of Types II and III with a wide range of petroleum generation potentials from very poor to very good. Thermal and burial history models indicate that the source rocks entered the early‐mature/mature stage in very recent times (Pleistocene to Recent). The top of the oil window ranges in depth from 1,800 m to 4,500 m, whereas the bottom of the oil window was not reached by most of the studied wells.In combination with numerical modelling results, structure contour maps for key horizons reveal possible migration trends and prospective areas. We tentatively identify prospective targets for hydrocarbon exploration, both in the Tertiary sequence and in the Cretaceous succession, especially where carbonate build‐ups are present.